The Afghanistan Journalists’ Center (AFJC) has denounced restrictions on U.S. international public radio broadcasts in the country in recent days, as part of a campaign that began two months ago with the cutting of its frequencies and continued with impediments to accessing its web pages.
Radio Azadi and Voice of America are the two media outlets affected by these restrictions. Sources close to the latter, as well as national media operators, suspect, on condition of anonymity, that these cuts are the result of a direct order from the Taliban.
«It is clear that it is not a technical problem because all the websites are closed through the main operators. It is clearly the work of the Taliban, but the country’s (Media) Commission has not been notified,» according to one of these sources.
Restricting the media without a court order remains a criminal offense under Afghan law despite the Taliban’s rise to power.
The Taliban have not commented on an incident that VOA acting director Yolanda Lopez expected at some point, according to a statement posted on her Twitter account.
«We have been preparing for it [and] our audience in Afghanistan has been using tools promoted by VOA to circumvent the blockade,» the note said.
The current Afghan authorities accuse these media outlets of violating journalistic principles and providing biased information.
According to AFJC, more than half of the 600 media outlets that were active in Afghanistan before the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 have been shut down either for economic reasons or because of fundamentalist restrictions. In addition, hundreds of Afghan journalists and media workers have fled their country.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
